One More Day
by The Vampire's Missus
Summary: Nick Klein faces his demons in rehab. Part 1 in a trilogy.


One More Day

The early summer sun poured in through the window, lighting up the basic functional room. This was Nick Klein's room at the rehabilitation clinic, where had spent the last couple of months battling a drug addiction.

He was in the bathroom shaving for the first time in weeks. Catching a glimpse of his pale face in the mirror, he heard a woman's voice say _"You look like Dracula with the 'flu!" . _He recalled the Liverpudlian accent as sharp and clear as the day Cass had teased him when he had turned up for work after a hard night's drug fueled clubbing.

He remembered the way she would laugh: a wonderful cackling sound, eyes full of joy as though she had seen or heard the funniest thing on Earth. He remembered standing in Di Worrel's broom cupboard, speaking on a mobile phone in a Kenneth Williams plummy voice, winding up the sprog PC Ben Hayward. The sound of Cass' barely suppressed cackling almost made him lose the plot, but Smiffy was able to shush her a bit - but not much!

Cass, Ben and Di Worrell were all dead now. The Sun Hill firebombing had claimed 6 lives, ripping a hole in the lives of those who remained. He and Cass had coped by burning the candle at both ends - losing themselves by clubbing all night and struggling, zombie-like into work on an early shift. Nick thought about the fruit and energy drinks he had made Cass take as "medicine" for their tired bodies and minds, at least they managed to get some vitamins out of them, if not much in the way of nutrition.

Nick recalled the night Cass had first said she wanted some ecstasy - she had seen him talking to an plug-ugly bloke and figured out that he was Nick's dealer. She had needed a release.

But...

One really rotten day they had discovered a suicide; then found children playing with medical waste - a little girl who had a syringe stuck in her arm had later died in hospital from the contamination. Later, she'd met a lovely bloke in a pub and was keyed up for another night of clubbing when the guy collapsed from an ecstacy overdose - his death snapped her out of the fantasy life she had been sharing with Nick. She urged him to do likewise, but being the fool that he was, Nick tried rationalising his drug taking. He protested that it was a habit he could control and you only needed to take precautions to be safe. Those words mocked him now.

His attitude towards his drug taking had made him careless. It was only a matter of time before his dealer was arrested. Dozens of dealers were arrested every month, and his dealer had the misfortune to be arrested by the newly arrived DS Phil Hunter. This led to a spiral of being trapped and manipulated by the sleazy detective. Worse, Cass had been dragged into Nick's mess, and for this he could not forgive himself. It was by more luck that skill that Nick had kept Cass out of it all. This cat and mouse game with Phil had led to Nick being placed in an impossible situation during an undercover operation, and Phil had a videotape to keep Nick under his thumb. His cocaine habit had got a 17 year old girl seriously beaten, and yet he felt he could do nothing else. Nick burnt with shame as he recalled Phil's taunting, smug attitude. The memory of his attack at the hands of Frank Magorian made him wince as a phantom pain in his ribs appeared. He know that Phil was somehow to blame for that attack, but he could not figure out how.

This battle against Phil had totally distracted him from his deepening feelings for Cass. Always good friends; then, after the death of Sam Harker in the firebombing, best friends. Then, slowly a feeling that Cass was his soulmate. But it was never a conscious thought, only a buried, unacknowledged feeling which was submerged by the stresses of the job, Phil The Creep Hunter, and his increasing drug use.

The stresses showed also in his increasingly precarious finances. He had inherited a BMW from an uncle, but the cost of his habit was ever increasing. He had sold it just before Christmas to fund his habit. Thank God his mortgage was automatically deducted from his wages. He had even lied to and stolen from his colleagues in a final, desparate act of stupidity.

Which was why he was here in this clinic. He needed to deny his body and mind the drugs he craved. They were just props he had to discard. His unabated grief over Cass' murder had tilted him into another drug spiral. But the drugs only submerged the pain, did nothing to soothe it.

The sun had climbed higher in the sky as Nick walked into the gardens. A lake was down a small hill, and he walked down towards it. He could see the car park from here and waited...

This was a day he had both dreaded and wanted.

Soon, a car turned into the driveway and a middle-aged couple got out. Nick's stomach tightened with a kind of fear, but he calmed himself. The couple walked slowly toward the building as Nick quickened his pace. He reached them before the door and stopped in front of them.

"Hi mum, hi dad", he managed to say, tears welling in his eyes.

Rose and Benjamin Klein stopped and said nothing, choking with emotion. Finally they all fell together and held each other. Eventually, they came apart and the parents stood looking at their only child. Rose held her hand to Nick's face and Benjamin was the first to break the silence, "We're so sorry son."

"No! I'm the one who should be sorry. I lied to everyone and shut you out. I never called you, I tore up mum's notes she'd left when she came to my flat, I barely spoke to you in the past year...", Nick trailed off in self-disgust.

Rose sighed and spoke for the first time, "Let's go for a walk and sit down". Nick took them to the lakeside, arm in arm and they sat at the water's edge.

Nick looked down, then in a rush, "I didn't want you to see me before because I was scared of how you'd react. I remember always feeling that I was never as good or smart as my cousins. I do know that's not and never was true. But I knew that you'd be ashamed of me being a junkie. You have all the reason in the world be angry at me. I couldn't face you before, but I have to - I can't shut everything off and deny things anymore - that's how I got into this mess".

"Nick, we love you and we are not ashamed of you. We are going to help you get through this. You are not alone", Benjamin declared with passion.

Rose smiled and asked, "Are they feeding you properly here? You look like you need a bit of fattening up - you were always such a skinny little thing!"

That broke the ice and Nick felt safer and more human than he had in months. "About Uncle Aaron's BMW..", Nick started, but was interrupted by his mother.

"Oh that, you sold it to buy drugs, didn't you? We found the sale slip when we went to pick up some more clothes and clean the flat. It doesn't matter now, dear. It's only a car. What's done is done.", she put her arm on his shoulder and rubbed it, smiling at him, "By the way, we left _those_ magazines where we found them."

Nick coughed in embarressment, "Umm, yeah, thanks mum.", he said sheepishly.

His father chuckled and changed the subject, "We also brought that photo of Cass, she was such a lovely girl. We hope she's at peace now." He took the picture out from his pocket. It was similar to one Cass had in her flat - she and Nick dressed to thrill, dancing and in bliss. Nick traced the outline of her face and smiled at the bittersweet memory. Another drug fueled night...

They continued to talk as the afternoon wore on, eventually parting with love and more tears.

Nick returned to his room and putting the photo against the bedside clock, cried some more. Another day was nearly over and he found himself looking forward to tomorrow. This was one day in a long and painful life, but he knew he could get to the end. He knew he could walk back into Sun Hill and do his job. He knew he wanted Cass be be proud of him. He knew it be difficult, but he knew he had to try. Now, as his mind was becoming sharp and focussed again, Nick had started to move through his grief. He would never forget the woman he loved, but he felt that he could begin to start to let go...


End file.
